all we said was very true, but that there would shortly be a fire kindled there regularly—that they wanted money—and that, in short, the dollar and a half must be paid; but herefrom we at least took our departure without asking leave of our own Consul. From the Custom House of Galata, we proceeded up a steep ascent to Pera, the quarter of the Franks—the focus of diplomacy—where every lip murmurs “His Excellency,” and secretaries, interpreters, and _attachés_ are “Thick as the leaves on Valombrosa.” But, alas! on the 1st day of January, Pera, Galata, and their environs, were one huge snowball. As it was Friday, the Turkish Sabbath, and, moreover, a Friday of the Ramazan, every shop was shut; and the few foot passengers who passed us by hurried on as though impatient of exposure to so inclement an atmosphere. As most of the streets are impassable for carriages, and as the sedan-chairs which supply, however imperfectly, the place of these convenient (and almost, as I had hitherto considered, indispensable) articles, are all private property, we were e’en obliged to “thread our weary way” as patiently as we could—now buried up to our knees in snow, and anon immersed above our ancles in water, when we chanced to plunge into one of those huge holes which give so interesting an inequality to the surface of Turkish paving. Nevertheless, despite the difficulties that obstructed our progress, I could not avoid remarking the little straw huts built at intervals along the streets, for the accommodation and comfort of the otherwise homeless dogs that throng every avenue of the town. There they lay, crouched down snugly, too much chilled to welcome us with the chorus of barking that they usually bestow on travellers: a species of loud and inconvenient greeting with which we were by no means sorry to dispense. In addition to this shelter, food is every day dispensed by the inhabitants to the vagrant animals who, having no specific owners, are, to use the approved phraseology of genteel alms-asking, “wholly dependent on the charitable for support.” And it is a singular fact that these self-constituted scavengers exercise a kind of internal economy which almost appears to exceed the boundaries of mere instinct; they have their defined “walks,” or haunts, and woe betide the strange cur who intrudes on the privileges of his neighbours; he is hunted, upbraided with growls and barks, beset on all sides, even bitten in cases of obstinate contumacy, and universally obliged to retreat within his own limits. Their numbers have, as I was informed, greatly decreased of late years, but they are still very considerable.